“Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.” ~ Robert A. Heinlein

As the founder of a blog with a title such as mine, it should come as no surprise that I think a lot about happiness. But lately I’ve been thinking a lot about a specific brand of happiness not much talked about.

I even did a Google Search to see what’s being said and found, well, nothing. There’s quite a bit about the moral responsibility of being happy, and whether living by moral values adds to or detracts from happiness. But I found nothing on moral happiness itself.

So, what is moral happiness anyway? Well since, as far as I can tell, I’ve coined the term, I’ll tell you what I mean by it:

Moral happiness is a vulnerable and unguarded brand of happiness that’s open to influence by moral considerations.

In case you’re not quite sure what I mean by that, let’s try an example:

The popular perspective in much of the contemporary happiness literature is that my wife’s mood, for example, should not affect my mood. I am the master of my feelings. I choose my emotions as a proactive and self-directed being. My happiness is therefore beyond others’ reach.

That is, of course, unless I care deeply about my wife. Unless I am compassionate and have a heart big enough for empathy. Unless I practice moral happiness.

In that case, my wife’s feelings suddenly become very important to me. To some degree, I feel what she feels. My happiness is affected by what she experiences and goes through. That doesn’t mean I will necessarily be able to change others’ level of happiness in the long run. We truly do choose our own responses to life.

It also doesn’t mean that one’s depression is their spouse’s depression or that only when one is happy can the other be. But if I care, the feelings of those I love will affect mine. If my wife were to be sad, I would be sad. Why? It’s simple: I love her. My heart longs for her happiness as though it was my own. If she’s not, my compassion for her has an effect on how I feel.

The suffering of others viscerally affects those who are moved by altruistic moral principles like compassion, love, thoughtfulness and kindness. So while compassion is a characteristic of happiness, it is also a characteristic that can compromise it.

The 6 Characteristics of Moral Happiness

1. Have empathy even if it means feeling the pain others feel

Empathy in some respects is a prerequisite to compassion. But empathy is also a trait that can rob happiness of some of its luster. Empathy allows us to connect with others, to feel what they feel, to step into their shoes. It’s a vital characteristic of a moral, feeling, loving people.

As we open our hearts to others in empathy, we also open our hearts to their pain. If we feel for the plight of real people truly suffering, we suffer to some degree right alongside them.

But to squelch empathy for the sake of personal happiness is to diminish our humanity. While it’s true that we shouldn’t go around incapacitated by grief for the sorrow and suffering of the world, to close our hearts entirely to it in a self-concerned rejection of anything painful is an emotional/moral trade-off with a price too high to pay.

Although empathy can compromise our day-to-day feelings of happiness, there is an inner voice that calls on us to cultivate the character trait nonetheless.

2. Be informed about important events even if it makes you feel bad

It’s much easier to feel consistently happy when we stay locked up and cloistered in our own secluded worlds of optimistic positivity. When we’re uninformed about world events, about wars and poverty and oppression, it’s much easier to remain safe and sound and untouched in our happy bubble.

But there is a moral downside to self-contained happiness. When we know little of the world, we can do little to improve it. (<– Tweet this!)

Happiness by virtue of hiding from the realities of a sometimes sad world is a superficial and immature kind of happiness. It is happiness by self-imposed ignorance. It’s one that also produces more suffering (or at least prevents less of it) because there are fewer informed people working to end it.

There’s nothing happy about civil wars or acts of oppression or brutality against women or violence against children or attacks on those of the “wrong” faith or ideology or gene pool. But knowing what can be done to help and voting for those who will matters greatly.

So being informed can certainly place a dimmer on our daily experience of happiness. Get informed on the important (albeit sometimes painful) issues of the day anyway.

3. Allow guilt in if it keeps you honest, kind and forgiving

Guilt is a frequent thief of happiness. If we could do away with the little bugger, we could sail through life doing just about whatever we wanted to do, whenever we wanted to do it, with whomever we wanted it done.

Of course guilt is lousy when it wrongly or overenthusiastically self-condemns. But when it’s doing what it’s meant to do, it functions as a signal warning us when we falter from the moral path. It reminds and corrects and guides and inspires us to higher ground. Still, guilt just doesn’t feel very good. It feels downright guilty as a matter of fact.

Guilt can therefore compromise immediate feelings of inner peace and joy. But at the same time, a guilt-free life tends to produce fewer decent people.

We have all experienced moments when we felt bad about the way we talked to someone or treated them or talked behind their backs. Our conscience pinched a bit until we made the proper amends. That was the language of guilt inspiring a course correction.

Happiness can’t be had short of character. Guilt is an internal warning bell that rings whenever we compromise our character. To do away with the one is to risk the other two.

4. Delay gratification even though you’re delaying gratification

Delaying gratification is, well, ungratifying. It compromises feeling good now for something we don’t even know for sure will come to pass later. It puts off what we want to do today for something else (a future goal or higher value) down the road. It is therefore a direct assault on pleasure in the moment.

But the kind of happiness that endures the moment requires it. This is because happiness is best had when we learn self-discipline. We live better. We treat others better. We think and act better. We even eat better. We are therefore equipped to feel better. Obedience to every impulse and fleeting carnal desire is really to be victim to animal instinct and the lowest parts of our nature.

Delaying gratification means not doing something that would otherwise and in some way gratify. Delay the gratification of your lower impulses for something more noble and decent and worthy and consistent with your highest values anyway.

5. Be a friend even if it means tolerating a little negativity

Friendship is a sacred thing. We should be slow to terminate it for human imperfections, flaws and frailties. It’s a popular thing to suggest shaving the complainers and negative thinkers off our party lists. But sometimes it’s the most pessimistic people who are most in need of our positive-thinking examples.

Patience and love and forgiveness and the emotional maturity to resist getting sucked into their negativity are part of growing up and developing stronger emotional and moral muscles.

So rather than kicking the pessimist (who is otherwise a decent and kind person) out of the friendship club, set some boundaries that are clearly defined (“if you continue to put down everyone’s plans, we’re going to have to regrettably dis-invite you from the activity tomorrow. We want you there, but this is overboard”) with clearly stated reasons for them (“your constant complaining is just too emotionally draining to tolerate all day long”), then invite more optimists in to counterbalance the pessimism and, perchance, by the power of your collective example, turn the pessimist into a budding optimist.

6. Be willing to sacrifice happiness at times for something bigger than your happiness

Sacrifice has gotten a bad name in some circles. That’s a shame. In a do-what-I-want culture of limitless everything, the idea of sacrificing anything for anyone else or in the name of some universal ideal seems counterintuitive to happiness. And truth is, sacrifice means just what it sounds like it means.

Those who sacrifice don’t get what they want so that someone else can get what they need. And that slaps happiness square on the cheek. Or so it would seem.

A life without sacrifice is a life dedicated to the “me”-ethic. The problem is that morality and human decency is built on the “we”-ethic and therefore, to some degree, on sacrifice.

The soldier who defends his land. The police officer who shields an innocent life with his body. The firefighter who enters a burning building to rescue one more. The kid who sticks up to the bully for someone weaker. The stranger who stops a rape. The woman who shares her meal with a stranger. The neighbor who gets out of bed early to help you move.

Less sacrifice for the sake of more personal enjoyment would mean fewer acts of kindness and fewer acts of bravery and fewer acts of nobility. It would also mean less long-run happiness by fewer people in a society where people only looked after their own, unwilling to sacrifice means or comfort or time to help a neighbor.

Sacrifice is the act of giving up a degree of immediately-felt comfort for something or someone else. Sacrifice anyway.

Afterthoughts

There are times when the right thing to do is not the happy thing to do, at least not in the short-run. At such moments, a moral people have to decide what’s most important. More short-term happiness or more long-term decency? To protect the one at the expense of the other is a sacrifice with far reaching consequences.

Moral happiness is happiness tempered by moral considerations. In the long-run, those moral considerations will do more for your self-esteem and self-confidence and sense of value and worth and trust and self-respect than any amount of self-serving happiness ever could in the short-run.

So keep pursuing happiness. But open it to moral concerns. Yours, mine and our collective lives will be the better for it.

YOUR TURN!

So what do you think? Am I right? Did I overstate my case? Or were there any other characteristics of moral happiness I missed?

26 Comments

I think that you’re spot on. Thich Nhat Hanh warns that we should not insulate ourselves from the world. We are a part of the whole. There are times to be happy and not, but we should never lose hope. Mindfully seeing things as they are.

So true. The more we isolate and insulate ourselves from the world, the more insignificant our influence on it will likely be. We can be in the world to influence it without being of the world by adopting worldly views and habits.

I’ve often said what I felt about happiness – that it’s actually our state of mind and the till to be happy, which we can be in any circumstances. That’s the reason we see even the poor happy, or even the rich who are never happy, even though they have in abundance.

I loved the example you shared about your wife and how both, your happiness is interdependent and linked to her happiness. And that, just as you mentioned is because you love her and can feel her pain, as well her sorrows.

I can well relate to that, because I feel the same way where my husband and myself are concerned. There are times when given an option you might like to leave your better half to his or her own state of mind, whether happy or sad, but is that morally correct? How does one deal with our own inner-self that ways?

I guess it matters a great deal, especially if you a spouse or even a family member more-so that you learn to sacrifice and do things for one another, even if you are not wanting to at times. It might be things that gives another person happiness, even if it doesn’t actually give you happiness – that’s where compassion and empathy comes in, something that all of us need.

What a wonderful comment you left! You’re right about it being tempting to sometimes leave others we care about to their own sadness. And I suppose there are occasions or conditions where you may have to. But as a general rule, the moral question should influence the happiness question. Our happiness should be sturdy enough to allow the moral to influence it. If it’s not, then we can take steps to get to that place. But it should be a goal, at least.

I also like what you said about sacrificing for the other. When we make those little sacrifices, it sends such a powerful message of love to those being sacrificed for. Right now, for example, my wife is spending huge amounts of time over with my daughter who had a few complications with the delivery of our first grandchild. My daughter has been overwhelmed and humbled (her words) with the love and attention she has given her (I’ve been sick with the flu since our granddaughter’s birth, in case you’re wondering why I haven’t been making similar sacrifices. I’ve been banned until full recovery — boohoo!).

I think you need a bit bigger perspective on discipline. It isn’t just punishment. Learning a skill/discipline can be a pleasure. Even when it includes going against our ‘natural inclinations’ (prior learning).

And I think there needs to be a place for imagination, design and so on as well being informed. People can end up foetal in their lounge room overwhelmed by the information on how bad things are. Part of the truth is that I can only do what I can do.

I totally agree that self-discipline is not a punishment. It’s really about the ability to subordinate an impulse to a higher value. That certainly is no punishment by any stretch of the imagination. But the article wasn’t about the principle of self-discipline, only about those things that can potentially compromise some degree of our immediate feelings of happiness. For some people, self-discipline is a hardship. Self-discipline can be very agonizing to those who are not very disciplined, who are fighting to subdue an impulse they have long given into. Some habits die hard. And even if the word “agonizing” is too strong for most of us, it still requires discipline, which means to some degree we’re going against those natural inclinations. We may prefer to watch some TV but we’re making ourselves practice the piano anyway. That is compromising something we would prefer doing right now for something we hope to become later.

As for imagination and design, I don’t see those as compromising happiness in the slightest. But many bloggers talk about staying away from world events because knowing about them compromises their good feelings. I’m suggesting we should be informed anyway as a moral consideration so we’re armed with knowledge that will allow us to better do the right things to improve the world condition.

Thanks for making me clarify, as usual! Let me know if I missed the mark!

Hi Ken, I didn’t mean that imagination and design would compromise happiness. I meant that they needed to be added to the information so that it was easier for us to respond constructively to it and not get stuck. Apologies for the confusion.Evan recently posted … How to Make Friends

I think it’s easy to read too much into this Ken. I guess that you can be “happy” regardless… or you can be “happy” because…
Morals are part of the normal fabric of Life, unhappy people will still have morals. There are no doubt many happy people with a lack of morals.
“Guilt” is a big killer of happiness as you have pointed out. Thanks for keeping the happiness flowing.
be good to yourself
DavidDavid Stevens recently posted … Living Life Today – “Thankyou” a one word Gift…or is it two?

I’m not sure I follow. The article is about moral issues taking precedence over our personal feelings of happiness, that there are times we should keep a friend because of the sanctity of friendship even if the friend is more negative than we would like in our group of friends, that guilt can rob happiness, but that we should still welcome it as a signal to walk the moral path more precisely, that morality is an essential part of living life, but that morality calls on us to live a certain way even when it may compromise some degree of our happiness (even if it’s usually a more short-termed happiness that’s compromised).

So I agree unhappy people can still be moral and that many happy people can use some good character education to say the least (but I would add that their happiness isn’t because of their immorality, but because of other principles of happiness they are consciously or otherwise applying). But that wasn’t what my post was about. Sorry if I didn’t make it clear enough. But thanks for keeping me honest and making me clarifying further!

Ah, this is a post my Ma would have loved – you’ve summed up the traits she believed in, and lived by. It is so easy to arrive at hasty conclusions – and this usually happens when groups of people are involved. The tendency to “go with the flow” regardless of how one personally feels is very common. Maybe because of the “acceptance” aspect. “Better do this, otherwise….” No one wants to be alienated, no?

Only truly strong people can achieve that balance where, at the end of the day, they are satisfied with their actions and don’t feel guilt or regret about anything. “I wish I had….” is alien to them because they just go ahead and do the appropriate (maybe not always right in everyone else’s view) thing.

Moral happiness is a beautiful thing. I love my family and friends to bits and would do anything to make them feel better. It is the kind of beautiful thing were, on a very crowded day, I worry about doing the dishes and even as I am, an angel (Sury) is in the kitchen clearing it up, even though his list is crowded. That inspires me and suddenly the world looks bright again.

I am thinking of the nights I sat up to work, and even though my Mom was not well, she’d pull up a chair and read a book until I was ready to get to bed. She didn’t feel the backache from sitting up because her MIND was happy – and that is what counted. And now I do the same with Vidur – and Sury, when they’re busy with something – supplying refreshments – and providing moral support 😀 for what it is worth.

And all this matters, because, today, I am blessed with friends, who, even though they’re continents apart, know when I am low and phone me to ask what’s up, because they sensed it. I am really lucky to have decades old friendships in my life – the longest being 41 years. As you described, we persevered, tolerated and loved without giving up on each other. God knows none of us is perfect but it takes a special kind of love to synchronize and stick together – so that it feels like we were never apart even when we connect after months.

The other day, on my way back from school, at the traffic crossroads, a maniac in a car shot the red light and grazed a schoolkid on his bicycle. The kid just went over – out of sheer shock and of course in two min there was a huge crowd there, yelling at the car driver. Nobody bothered to check the kid. I rushed over to pick him up – the road is horrible there and getting splashed with road junk when it rains is a certainty as the potholes are brimming over with gunk. The child was embarrassed, unhurt and unhappy – his white school uniform was a mess. Guess what he worried about? That his Mom would scold him for messing his whites up – and not because he might be late for school! What about his happiness?

Sorry to hear about your ‘flu, Ken – I hope you are feeling much better now. Congratulations on becoming a Grandparent. I love that word: Grand just about covers it. I only knew one Grandparent and that was my Grandmother. You would have liked her very much.

Cheers to “moral happiness” – it is a terrific phrase. Don’t you love it that ultimately, we have a CHOICE with everything? That’s true freedom!

Just last night my wife’s back was sore. She’d been running all over the place. Helping my daughter, volunteering at my son’s school, attending a funeral, shopping, then coming home and cooking dinner. At the end of the day, she collapsed on the bed, tired and sore.

So I climbed in beside her and gave her a long back rub. Her service inspired mine. Did part of me want to sit down at the computer and get caught up? Sure it did. But my appreciation of her, my love for her, put me beside her rubbing her back. It was the right thing to do. It was the appreciative thing to do. It was the loving and compassionate thing to do.

Once you indicated that the crowd was yelling at the driver, I knew instantly where you would be. And sure enough, you headed right where I figured you would go. So glad there are people like you out there Vidya!

I think the bug is on it’s way out. I’m feeling much better — no fever or aching muscles anymore. Just a lingering cough. But once that’s done with, I’ll be jumping into my new grandparent role with guns a blazing (so to peak!) 🙂

The more I hear about your family — mom, grandmother, immediate family — the more I’m certain I’d like the lot of them very much, Vidya!

I absolutely love that we have a choice! The freedom of choice, as a matter of fact, is the basis of both morality AND happiness.

you ken
i wish the world had more people like you
with all the hatred some people carry we seriously do need people who spread love and peace
thanks for the post and keep it upfarouk recently posted … how harmful is internet porn addiction

This is exactly why I’m so against the popular phrase which says, ‘As long as it makes you happy, do it’.

I hear this everywhere. Parents are saying this to their kids, it’s said on TV a lot, my friends are saying it to other friends etc. I hate this term.

We can’t let ‘as long as it makes me happy’ our motto. What about what our happiness does to someone else? What about how much our happiness is costing other people? This it totally selfish, and a premise I never want my kids to adopt.

Happiness has to have a moral base. Sometimes things make us happy but they’re wrong for the people we love. Sometimes (like the example you used with your wife) our happiness is – and should be – tied into what others are going through.

What a great point, Anne! I wish I would have added that in the article! 🙂 So glad you added it here to make up for the omission! That phrase, “As long as it makes you happy” and it’s similar expression, “Whatever makes you happy” have always bothered me too.

As for your soap box, I loved it. Step on up anytime you feel so inspired! 🙂

Such an interesting article with really inspirational thoughts! I really like your definition for moral happiness, its kinda one of the highest levels of happiness and balance!Betti recently posted … Foghíj helyett fogbeültetés

Thank you, Betti. Yes, there are kinds or degrees of happiness that are very self-focused, calling on us to do what we want, fulfill our passions, pursue our dreams, live our lives on full-throttle. And there’s not necessarily anything wrong with that advice. I’ve given something like it here before. But there is a more mature version of happiness that requires something deeper from us to attain it. And in that way, I suppose you can call it a higher level of happiness. And like you said, it requires more balance between what makes us feel happy and living by moral principles that may at times dim the happiness we would otherwise experience.

I think four of your six points are absolutely spot on. But instead of getting stuck in a “you’re so right!” circlejerk, I’ll be an annoying little bugger and pick at something in the other two points. 😉

I think in your last point, you mix up short-term pleasure and long-term happiness. Short-term pleasure is the rush of dopamine you feel from pleasant things, like eating a chocolate brownie, or taking a warm bath. Long-term happiness, on the other hand, comes down to aligning with your values – it’s the deep, underlying feeling that you’re doing something worthwhile with your life.

So, looking at it that way, you’re not talking about sacrificing happiness for happiness, but short-term pleasure for long-term happiness. (I’m nit-picking the words because I find that using two different terms for the two different things helps me think more clearly). Which is actually pretty straightforward once you can overcome the urge to seek immediate gratification.

And as for being informed about important events – I find that a lot of people urge me to spend WAY too much following the media. No, really, I prefer to focus my energy on things where I can make a difference, rather than getting angry about and burning mental energy on things outside my control. So I leave many issues to other people, and focus on where I’ve decided to make a difference – helping others find their passion.

I’m reminded of the story of the factory owner who was deeply disturbed by the infant mortality rate in his city. It troubled him and kept him awake at night as he thought about all the weeping mothers and lifeless infants. So much human potential snuffed out before getting a chance to live. Then he found out it was his factory that was leaking chemicals into the groundwater that was responsible for the deaths.

When we don’t know, we don’t know what power we have to change the plight of others. So while gorging on a diet of political junk food is never well advised, abstention from all things news is to walk blindly through life unaware of the problems, unaware of the causes, unaware of the role one vote or one voice or one action could do to change the causes and therefore the plight. I think the subtitle of that particular characteristic tells it all: “Be informed about IMPORTANT events …” Most news does not rise to the level of important. I totally agree with you on that one. To paraphrase one social commentator, television news is a proctologist’s view of the world. But sometimes rectal exams matter. 😉

On the other point you make, I agree and disagree.

On the one hand, there is a huge difference between pleasure and happiness. One is a state and the other is condition-specific and lasts about the same duration of the thing providing the pleasure.

On the other hand, a pleasureless life is not a very happy one. Granted, pleasure is not happiness, as I’ve said. But a happy life has to include it. So anything that compromises pleasure of the more profound kind (the pleasure of family is not the same as the pleasure of a slice of cheesecake. The pleasure derived from developing a talent is not of the same stuff as that which is gotten from late night encounters with online porn.

There are truly happiness-reducing sacrifices that nonetheless are higher roads that sometimes need to be taken. The pleasure a soldier gets from living life is not a simple momentary pleasure. So that sacrifice he makes to serve a higher cause is a real sacrifice of happiness.

Having said that, I do appreciate your attention to details. I do love a good challenge. It helps me clarify for myself and other readers as well. It also helps me tighten up my thinking. So very much appreciated, Vlad.

With your soldier example, my point is that the thought of giving up his life for the greater good is so strongly aligned with his values that it brings him even MORE happiness than staying alive.

I mean, he wouldn’t do it otherwise.

So saying he’s sacrificing happiness is a bit like saying that a checkmate-in-3 during a game of chess, where you lose your queen, is “sacrificing your queen”. No, it isn’t. You’re giving up the queen to gain something much more valuable – the enemy king. That’s not really a sacrifice, that’s a beneficial exchange.

I guess we’re approaching the situation from two different angles. You’re saying that he’s giving up one kind of happiness (living a life) for a different kind of happiness (sacrificing himself for a worthy cause). I’m saying he’s making the choice that maximizes his happiness given the choices, which is something we all do. (Unless we get stuck chasing short-term pleasure over long-term happiness).

Thanks for the explanation, Vlad. Two sides of the same coin is probably pretty apt. Still, I would hold that the state of happiness is pretty curtailed in a state of dead. Granted, if you’re thinking REALLY long term, like eternal happiness in an afterlife, I concede the point. Otherwise, I maintain death very well may put a damper on one’s happiness. 😉

[…] Happiness can’t be had short of character. Guilt is an internal warning bell that rings whenever we compromise our character. To do away with the one is to risk the other two. Continue reading to discover the other characteristics… […]

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About Me

My name is Ken Wert, the founder of M2bH. My purpose here is to teach you how to live a richer life of greater purpose and meaning, of mind-blowing possibility and deeper, more soul-satisfying happiness than you ever dreamt was possible. Join us on this happy adventure as you learn how to unlock your hidden potential to enjoy the rewards of a life well lived. Read more ...